Adding fiber additives to your existing arena footing can have a wide range of advantages for your horse’s health and performance. A footing additive like Noviun, helps increase water retention, stability, and cushioning. But finding the right footing for an arena can be difficult and many items should be taken into consideration.
Why Use Fiber Footing
One of the main advantages of adding natural fibers to your arena is their ability to absorb water. Fiber footing for horse arenas retains water better than sand and other materials, reducing the need to water your arena. Higher water retention means less maintenance and less water waste.
Fiber footing also has excellent shock absorption and cushioning. This will reduce the amount of impact on your horse while riding and jumping. More cushioning helps your horse perform more efficiently while reducing their chances of injury.
Without fiber footing’s increased cushioning, continuously harsh impacts on your horse’s hooves can have negative consequences. Riding on an unsupportive surface can wear on your horse over time. For the best performance and the healthiest horse, high-quality fiber footing is the ideal option. Novium creates a healthier and safer environment for both horses and riders.
Fiber Footing for Horse Arenas: Noviun vs GGT
There are many high-quality arena footing options on the market. If you are looking for additives that contain fibers, there are natural and synthetic fiber options. At Performance Footing, we work using science to create the top footing options for each unique use case.
Today we will compare our new footing option, Noviun™ Fiber Footing, which is all-natural fibers and elastomers with synthetic options containing plastic-based textiles, carpet fibers or other fibers like those found in German textile additives or carpet additives.
Noviun Fiber Footing
Noviun is an organic fiber footing option ideal for stabilizing footing and reducing concussion in both indoor and outdoor arenas. It’s a premier option for creating stable footing while contributing to higher water retention, cushioning, and shear.
European GeoTextile, TruTex or Carpet Footing
Geotextile fabrics and fibers, as well as those footing additives that contain carpet fibers, are made from a shredded synthetic polymer. Its strength lies in its resistance to high heat and direct sunlight.
Adding plastic to your footing comes at a cost. When adding plastic textiles to your footing, the plastic degrades into micro and nano plastic environmental pollution. After each rain or irrigation, it would cause an estimated 14 billion of these microplastic fibers to be shed into the surrounding ground and watershed.
Installation
The fiber footing additive Noviun is particularly easy to install and can be mixed and maintained in your arena with any groomer or drag. Follow these easy three ways to install Noviun Fiber Footing without the need for outside help.
- use a manure spreader
- pitch fork throwing
- put in a tractor bucket and shake out then even it out a bit by hand. You can then simply rake it in, drag it in, or use a harrow.
Other plastic-based additives, like geotextile or carpet additives, come in very large bales (typically 350 lb bales or more!). To install these additives, special equipment and usually outside assistance is required.
Benefits
Non-synthetic arena footing helps to increase stability and improve water retention. Both Noviun fiber footing and GGT work well when mixed with other materials, such as sand and different types of footing additives and are priced very similarly.
Benefits of Noviun vs Geotextile vs Carpet Additives
Geotextile footing can be an effective footing solution, however, it lacks the benefits that Novium Fiber provides. Some of the benefits of high-quality fiber footing compared to Geotextile are as follows.
Noviun:
- Doesn’t break down into microscopic plastic particles
- Doesn’t contaminate watersheds
- Can be installed AND maintained with any drag
- Requires less water
Final Thoughts
To determine what is the best type of fiber footing for horse arenas you’ll want to consider your current footing challenges and goals. Every arena and current footing is different. While from a price perspective, these additives are similar, the long and short-term benefits should be considered.. Some additives are most effective with riding while others are better suited for dressage arenas.
If you’re looking for better footing for your dressage or hunter/jumper arena, contact a Noviun specialist. You can send us a note at performancefooting.com/contact-us/ or call us at 877-835-0878.